Women Smokejumpers: Fighting Fires and Stereotypes

Smokejumpers are the troubleshooters of wildfire-fighting efforts. There are roughly 370 wildfires currently burning in the United States. Smokejumpers are dispatched to the fires that are too remote, the terrain too rugged, or the heat and flames too intense to reach otherwise. The work is back-breaking and dangerous and the hours are exhausting. You have to love it to do it, and smokejumpers are nothing if not passionate about their work.

"Discovering fire fighting for me was like discovering the job I had been meant to do but didn't know it existed," said smokejumper Lori Messenger. She'll describe a fire as "cooking pretty good," or "messy" and speak of flaming fronts and walls of fire as matter-of-factly as most of us speak of a harrowing day at the office when the computers went down.